


The Sound of Nothing

by dragonism



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Alternate Universe, Detective shenanigans, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mildly slow burn at least, Other, Rockstar feels, Slow Burn, and a very confused lesbian couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 21:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12690183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonism/pseuds/dragonism
Summary: In an alternate universe Todd Brotzman is the lead singer and guitarist of worldwide sensation punk band The Mexican Funeral, Dirk Gently works tirelessly to fix his mistakes.A fresh start in all the wrong ways.





	The Sound of Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever multi-chapter fic! Man this is gonna be a wild one. Hang on to your seat belts and I wholeheartedly dedicate this to my wonderful Toads.

Sunlight burst through a crack in the curtains, illuminating a double bed strewn with papers and pictures as a man with ruffled hair and creased clothes rolled over to groan into a pillow. “I’m awake. I’ve been awake.”

Not exactly the same exciting start as last time, that was certain, but it was at least something.

You see the man currently curling his toes and pondering whether he did in fact need to leave the safety of his bed that cold and unfamiliar morning was Dirk Gently. He was stuck in a Sit ‘n Stay Put motel room after a... large twist in the last case he’d undertaken. His friends, Todd and Farah, were nowhere to be seen- because as of a month ago, he’d never even met them. Understandably, that may be confusing, so to explain: after the Spring case was finished, and Dirk was moving Spring’s machine, he accidentally found himself hitting a very wrong button, sending a shockwave of energy over Springsborough that did a great deal of things. Three of the most important being:

1\. Resetting the date to a month in advance of the case.  
2\. Breaking the machine so that the Men of The Machine could never have actually used nor owned it in said past.  
3\. Effectively switching Dirk for that of another version of himself in an entirely different timeline, where Farah is a member of the Police Force and Todd is the lead singer of the Mexican Funeral... a worldwide famous punk band.

Which, brings us to today. Today marks the exact date that in the old timeline, Dirk met Todd for the first time upon climbing his way through his window. This means that Dirk’s month long plan would finally be fired into action on account of his exact location on this particular date.

For an entire month, Dirk had been collecting information on his friends, which with their new high profiles wasn’t entirely hard to do. He’d complained of course about having to use ‘actual evidence’ to solve his own small case but none the less he’d figured things out and the most surprising? Even in this timeline the three of their lives crossing all boiled down to this date. In this town.

This town being Bergsberg.

A quaint but incredibly strange town, Bergsberg had seemingly been an epicentre for timeline based activity for the last sixty or so years. Its papers were living proof of this, with dates and figures having been messed up ever since an ‘electrical storm’. Dirk of course knew this storm to be something otherwise, in fact he theorised that this storm was actually a series of timelines coming into contact with one another. This meant that if there was ever any chance of getting Todd and Farah to remember him, it would be here.

Which, it just so happened, was perfect. In his research Dirk had discovered that Farah had moved here around a year ago after marrying her wife- a woman named Tina Tevetino (he’d been quite happy to find his feelings about Farah’s attractions were confirmed by this information). And, even more perfectly, Todd’s band, The Mexican Funeral, would finish their world tour here- at the local festival The Sound of Nothing as the closing act. Todd, it would appear, had become central to media attention. In this series of events his band’s success had allowed him to support his sister’s pararibulitis, as well as pulling his parents from bankruptcy after years of treatment for his own disease. Which it seemed in this timeline he truly had, and actively spoke about in interviews over the years.

Dirk had winced, when upon delving deeper into this area of Todd’s life, he found an article about the singer’s first attack on stage. To quote, ‘fans and audience members alike were shocked to silence as the singer fell to his knees, shivering as though he were freezing in the mid summer weather’ and the event lead to their tour taking a huge hit.

Venues began to ponder if taking on the band was a good idea, or if it would only lead to further drama. However after Todd continued that night’s concert, and after a hell of a lot of rebuttal from fans, The Mexican Funeral continued to rise to fame.

Dirk was proud of his friends. Proud of what they’d achieved. Both of them had rose to such immense happiness and success. He only wished he’d been there with them, and had to remind himself that they were entirely unaware of whom he even was.

After a good while of merely lying face down on the bed, he finally pushed himself up, sitting to look out over the dingy motel room. It wasn’t the ideal living space, but it wasn’t terrible. Of all the motels he’d stayed in, it was at least in the top ten. Pulling on a jacket and dousing himself in a layer of body spray, he shoved the keys to the room into his pocket and ran his fingers through his hair to fix it upon passing a mirror. The first step in his plan that morning was to head to the local diner for breakfast, though having woken up at least three hours later than he anticipated- that breakfast may have to be exchanged for brunch.

It didn’t take him long to get to the small building. It, like the rest of the town, was quaint. The epitome of every American diner you see on TV, complete with old style booths and it’s own jukebox. Yet another thing left behind in the crossing of timelines.

Dirk pushed through the door, smiling to himself as a bell rang above his head, and walked over to slide into a booth. It didn’t take long for a chipper waitress to come over, and within a few minutes he’d ordered a plate of pancakes and a coffee. The day, by this point, was slow and unexceptional. Nothing truly exciting was happening other than the promise of pancakes and Dirk merely sat scrolling through his phone- twitter being something he’d discovered in his month alone.

That was until, he felt somebody’s foot brush against his own under the table, and looked up with wide eyes to be met with a man. The man was taller than himself, with a scuff beard and long blonde hair. Dirk could have sworn he recognised him.

“Sorry man, hope you don’t mind me chilling here for a minute. I’m tryna escape a few idiots with cameras.” The stranger spoke with a deep voice, laughing at the end of his sentence and sticking out a hand, which Dirk reluctantly shook, “Name’s Roland. Friends call me Rollie.”

“I... uh... nice to meet you Roland.” Dirk gave an affirmative nod to the information, finally realising where he recognised the name from. Rollie. He was the bassist for The Mexican Funeral. “I’m Dirk. I’m guessing by idiots with cameras you mean the paparazzi?”

“Yeah. Yeah. You know of the band?” Rollie spoke as though he were calm about learning that fact, but worry was clear in his tone.

“I do. But you needn’t worry, I’m not about to scream or burst into tears.”

“Aw, no tears?” The bassist teased, but gave a warm smile to Dirk, “Thanks man. It’s kinda rare you meet somebody who’s just chill about us lot nowadays.”

Returning the smile, Dirk looked to his side to see the waitress returning with his food for the morning. Rollie immediately sank into his seat, turning to look as though he was trying to find something in his bag. The woman looked questioning for a moment, but nodded, smiling at Dirk and setting down the coffee and pancakes in front of him. “Enjoy!”

“I will, thank you.” Hurrying his reply and nodding quickly, he watched as the bassist let out a sigh of relief as the waitress walked away, and laughed a little, “Pancake? You look like you might need one.”

“Dude. That’d be the best thing anybody has said to me all morning.”

Laughing a little more, Dirk pushed the plate so that it was between them, handing Rollie a spare fork and digging into his side of the pancakes, “So, you don’t like the attention then?”

“Nah, man.” Rollie spoke through a piece of food, waiting a moment to swallow before continuing, “I mean, hey, the fans are great and all. And we all love em. We kinda wouldn’t be where we are without them, but sometimes you just wanna hang out and eat pancakes y’know?”

“That makes sense. Could you not just tell people that?”

“I mean yeah, but then there’s always lash outs in the media.” The band member sighed, eating more of his pancake and sitting back in his seat, “People expect you to meet fans and constantly take pictures, if you don’t do that or don’t wanna do that you’re seen as rude. You don’t wanna be seen as rude because that’s a ‘bad reflection’ on the record label. Sometimes I think they see us as robots.”

“That’s... terrible.” Sipping his coffee, Dirk grew more intrigued by the band member, almost forgetting entirely just what band he came from.

“Yeah. It can be. But then like, you’re privileged y’know? You got the privilege of being rich and famous, so it sorta feels like maybe you do owe people something.” Rollie seemed to darken for a moment, pushing the food around the plate, before sitting up again with a sort of half smile on his lips, “Cassie, oh man Cassie is great at it. She’s always out there meeting fans and pulling these wild as hell stunts to avoid paps?”

Cassie. The band’s keyboard player and occasional backing vocalist. Dirk had certainly read up on a fair few of those ‘stunts’, the woman was truly something of a marvel when it came to the media and those who support her. An active feminist, her entire twitter feed was one of the most amazing things Dirk had ever read, and her jokes about her fellow bandmates were truly something to savour.

Dirk specifically remembered one picture of Todd, with a bead made of glitter, sleeping soundly on a tour bus. The caption had been something about him spending too long at ‘the bar’, which Cassie had also put in speech marks and added a little winky face next to.

“She does seem great.”

“Dude she is. Cassie is the light of the group, her and Todd have had a twitter battle to embarrass each-other for the last year.” Rollie chuckled, finishing off his pancake and wiping his mouth with a napkin, “It’s been so fucking hilarious.”

“I saw the prank she pulled on the whole band, the water balloons one?” Dirk finished off his own food, placing his fork down on his plate and pulling his coffee closer to him.

“That was the worst and best thing that ever happened on tour. Everything I own ended up drenched but it was too damn good for any of us to be mad at her.”

“How did you even get all of those out of the trailer?”

“With immense difficultly man.”

Rollie and Dirk shared a look, before breaking out into a fit of laughter. Dirk had to say, his morning may have started later than he anticipated- but the universe really seemed to be on his side with this one. There was a short moment of the pair laughing before they were interrupted by somebody who appeared to be Roland’s body guard half jogging over to the table, “Roland. We’ve been looking everywhere. Come on you need to get back to the band you have an interview in ten minutes.”

“Shit, that time already?” Rollie stood quickly, mostly due to the small bodyguard tugging on his arm. However he held back a moment, pulled a note out of his pocket and place it on the table, “You going to the festival later?”

“Yes, why?”

“Swing by trailer 10 after it’s over. Anybody asks say Rollie let you in, show em that card. Oh and the money’s to pay for breakfast.”

“W- Wha- Okay?” Dirk watched in awe as the bassist was lead swiftly out of the diner, staring down at the card for a moment before sipping his coffee. Not only was his breakfast payed for, but there was a good amount of extra money there too. He supposed that meant he’d have to use the card and visit the trailer in order to give it back.

The universe really was on his side.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so that’s chapter one! 
> 
> Lil bit short, I know, but they get longer I promise. For now, I think updates are gonna be every Friday/Saturday, but if they’re gonna be late I’ll add a note like this!


End file.
